Testing Your Nerves
by null-user0
Summary: Have you ever had a surprise test ruin your school day? Well, Riley has, and the shock alone was enough to knock out every emotion but Fear and Sadness. Will they be able to pull Riley through? Probably not, if Fear's insecurities keep getting in the way. Sadness's presence isn't helping much, either, as she unknowingly adds more pressure to her already stressed friend.


Riley hummed happily to herself as her parents walked with her down the street, the tall buildings moving by in the crisp morning air. It was another great day - a _really_ great day, as a matter of fact (unlike that first week in town). Today was Friday, which - in Riley's opinion - was the best day of the week, because you get that exciting feeling of school almost being over, and the last bell to look forward to all day. Hence, the big smile stuck on her face as she hummed to herself, hand-in-hand with her parents on the way to school.

Inside that happy eleven-year old's head, five emotions were going through their routines as usual. Or, rather, they would be, but everyone was preoccupied with a certain jingle that was playing on loop again. "This better work!" Anger growled as he covered his head with the newspaper, trying to block out the song, "Or I will personally throw that blasted gum commercial _out the window!"_

"Hang on! We're almost done!" With a skip in her step, Joy came twirling down from the bedroom, playing away on her accordion and singing along to the _Triple-Dent Gum_ tune (it had grown on her). As the notes bounced around HQ, the other emotions kept their ears plugged and their teeth gritted, hoping against hope that Joy's plan would work. Anger looked up at the golden orb with resentful eyes. It trembled. It shook. Then... in a sudden burst of energy, a tube came down and the memory finally went away. With a bow and a smile, Joy said, "And there we go! See? I _told_ you guys that's the best way to get it unstuck!"

"I still don't see how that works," Anger muttered as he turned a page in the newspaper, "It's the _tube_ that's busted, I'm tellin' ya! Playing along with that horrible song shouldn't magically un-jam the memory."

"But it did!" Joy said in a singsong voice, flicking a few more keys before putting the accordion away, "Which means the song is gone which means we can focus which means we can have a _fantastic_ Friday!"

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll have fun all day, especially _tonight,_ " Disgust said, "Assuming the school's hockey team actually does _good_ and doesn't completely get trashed in the rink, we'll end the day on a good note."

"I'm tellin' ya," Anger snarled, "If _we_ were on the team, they wouldn't have that problem! Not to mention those punks-"

Intervening before their thoughts could become unnecessarily negative, Joy pointed out that "There will always be future tryouts, at least! I mean... even if we... sort of... messed up the last one..." Her voice trailed off to a close as she realized what she was leading them to remember. She coughed nervously.

Sadness's tiny hand patted Joy on the back.

The others just nodded and agreed. "Eh," Anger said indifferently, flicking the newspaper again, "Maybe."

"If that's the case," Disgust said, "We have _got_ to keep practicing when we can, so our next tryouts will see us in _perfect_ shape."

"Exactly!" Joy said, back to her normal self, "So, are you still up to schedule practice times?"

"Yep," Disgust said as she inspected herself in the mirror (there was a smeared smudge of makeup on her cheek that she was busy correcting), "I've got that covered. And Sadness said she'd help by... uh..." puzzled, she furrowed her brows and turned to her small blue coworker, "What was it again?"

"Huh? Oh," Sadness's voice was just as soft and shy as ever, "Well, I made a list of- of sad memories, and we can bring them up and make her remember the times she messed up in hockey, and then we can know what we need to improve on." The sentence was punctuated by a nearly-invisible smile.

"Great!" Joy chirped, "Now, then - Fear?"

"Wha- Yes?" said the purple stick of an emotion, having just been yanked from his thoughts, "What? Huh? What did I miss?"

"Oh, I was just gonna ask what you had on the plan for today."

"Well," Fear said, skimming his notebook, thinking hard, and tapping his pencil, "You know what? Nothing! We are _good_ for the day - Mom and Dad are walking us to school, it's the end of the week, and our grades are all passing!" Smiling triumphantly, he threw his arms into the air and added, "We have nothing to be afraid of!" The notepad (which had been flung from his hands) made a sudden noise as it hit the floor, and he jumped with a yelp.

"Excellent!" Joy said, doing an excited little dance, "This is gonna be a great day, I can tell!"

As the others went to do their work, Fear's ever-rigid shoulders slowly relaxed. He stood still, twiddling his fingers as he contemplated his unexpected "day off." With that, he shrugged, smiled, and marched over to one of the back rooms, where he kept his tea supply. Unbeknownst to him, he began whistling the Triple Dent Gum song, earning a brief glare from Anger. The glare went unnoticed - Fear was too wrapped up in his own thoughts. _'Another fantastic day. So glad that things are back to normal... or, heck, even_ better _than normal, now that Joy's cut us some slack and let Sadness do her job. If we keep this up, Riley's gonna be the best, most emotionally healthy girl on the planet!'_

Slowly, though, his smile shifted, adopting a nervous tone. _'...Well, if_ most _of us keep this up, anyway. I - for one - definitely need to... improve.'_ A shudder rolled down his spine. His mind went back in time a few months. There he was, the only voice of reason in HQ, and he _failed_ to scare Riley off the idea of running away! As usual, he was just a spineless pushover while the other two marched right over him and - that time - endangered Riley. _'We_ 'd _have been killed,'_ he decided as he prepared his cup, _'I'm certain of it - because we'd be stuck outside late at night, with nowhere to go, and with a clown on the loose, probably watching our every move._ _At least Sadness came and fixed my mess...'_

He let that thought sink in.

A defeated sigh. _'What's_ wrong _with me? Why have I only been getting worse? It's like-_ _'_

"Wah!" he shouted as he felt something touch his back. He nearly spilled his tea as he spun around. For a tense moment, he was frozen with fear; there was nothing there! Nothing but the empty hall leading back to the main room. He trembled and whimpered. Were there such things as emotion ghosts?!

No, but there were such things as short coworkers who were below one's normal eye level. "Uh... Fear?"

He looked down and breathed a sigh of relief. It was just Sadness, standing there with his notebook and pencil and offering them up to him. "Oh, Sadness. It's just you. Thanks." After he took the items and pocketed them, he sipped his tea.

"Actually," Sadness said, pushing up her glasses, "Now that we're alone, I wanted to talk- to talk to you about something because... you look kinda _sad."_

Fear coughed nervously. Did he hear that right?

Sadness continued. "Is everything okay? Because I think-"

Fear was spared the awkward conversation by a sudden yelp of terror from the main room."Fear!" came Joy's voice. He choked on the rest of his tea before darting off. Disgust, Anger, and Joy were gathered around the console. When he looked up at the screen, he froze dead in his tracks. Riley was passing the school's library!

"Fear! What do we do?" Joy asked, worried.

"How'd we wind up _here_?" Fear said.

He regretted asking as Joy launched into a long, drawn out series of events that led to this point. "Oh, well, since today was Friday, and since we didn't have anything to be scared of (except now, of course, but you get the idea), I had the Train of Thought bring in some celebratory pizza!"

"But it was late!" Anger spouted.

"Yeah, it was late - but it got here!" Joy said, "Only, when it arrived, we were so distracted unloading it-"

"Because we got hungry," came Sadness's tiny voice as she walked back to the group.

Joy nodded, "Because we got hungry. So we were distracted and we forgot where Riley was going, just for a minute or two, and - well, I guess she was distracted, too, by wanting to order pizza tonight-"

"But not that broccoli stuff," Disgust interjected.

"Yeah," Joy continued, "Not that broccoli stuff, but I guess Riley just took _this_ way to class instead of the normal way because she was thinking about pizza so what do we do?"

Simple silence descended. Fear blinked once. "...what?"

Disgust rolled her eyes, "Ugh! See, Joy? Just spare the details and get to the point."

"Yeah," Joy said, "Sorry. Anyways - we're here. Do something!" Quickly she grabbed Fear and placed him at the controls.

"Uh, uh, okay! Okay!" Riley was nearly by the door to the library! Fear's personality caught up with him. Teeth gritted as he quickly siezed a lever and gave it a sudden jerk. The little girl looked up and realized where she was, then promptly turned around and took her normal route to class... you know, _the one that doesn't go by the library._ Heedless of how fast she was scurrying, she rounded the corner, nearly hitting another student.

"Fear! You're doing it again!" Disgust cried out, prying his fingers from the death grip they had on the lever, "You're overreacting! Loosen up!"

"Wha?!" Fear suddenly let go, "I-... oh. S-Sorry."

"It's okay," Joy said, "But we can slow down now, I think..."

"Y-Yeah. Please."

Joy grabbed the lever and eased it back to its normal position. Riley looked around. Her heart - racing at first - slowly wound itself to a reasonable tempo. She breathed a sigh of relief, and kept walking. Fear just rubbed his palms, cleared his throat, muttered something about "disaster averted," and eased his way back to the back room. _'Way to make a scene again,'_ he thought, mentally kicking himself.

But - still - Riley was scared of that area, and who could blame her? It's not that there's anything wrong with the _library,_ per se, but the librarian was another story. She was always sitting in the back of the horribly-lit room, at that creaky old desk, with a stern frown firmly planted on her ancient face. She didn't even smile when Riley had first met her and waved. All she did was narrow her eyes and go back to that giant book she was always reading. Riley had never heard her talk, but wouldn't be surprised if her voice sounded all grizzly and angry. Riley was afraid of so much as _breathing_ too loudly in there.

Fear refilled his half-spilled tea and made his way back to the main room.

Since Riley was so scared around the library, they made it a point to steer clear of it and its imposing inhabitant. That task was delegated to Fear, and - again - he felt he messed it up. _'Either you don't act enough, or you're overreacting! Get it together!'_ It's not like Riley needed any help being afraid. Heck, that librarian scared Riley so much that - one time - when she needed to use the restroom and couldn't remember where it was (and she happened to be in the library for some assignment) she refused to ask the librarian. Instead, she waited until she was out of that crypt and in the hallway. There she asked one of her new friends, Mary. The two shared similar opinions of the librarian, and she could relate all too well to Riley not wanting to even whisper to the scary adult.

Speaking of which, there she was. Not the librarian, of course, but Mary - over by her locker. Fear returned just in time to see Riley see her.

"Riley!" the bubbly girl exclaimed, "How's it going?"

"Great! Looking forward to the game tonight."

Mary nervously chuckled. "Yeah, me too. I feel like it's my shot to make up for last time."

Inside Riley's mind, Joy said, "Oh, she shouldn't say that about herself! She's great at what she does..." The golden emotion made a move to respond, but then stopped herself. She bit her lip, then stepped back. "Sadness?" she asked, gesturing to the console.

"No problem," said the small blue emotion as she pressed a button.

Fear found himself surprised. Admittedly, Joy was improving; first she started accepting when the others called her out on being controlling again, then she began asking them to correct her when she was about to mess up... but _this?_ This was probably the first time Fear was aware of that Joy had actually _stopped_ herself and let someone else take control.

"Yeah, I was at the game. I saw what happened," Riley said sympathetically.

"Oh, it must've looked awful, right?"

Smoothly, Sadness typed in a command into the keyboard. A recall tube came up, unsheathing a very special memory that pulsed between gold and blue. It was perfect for this occasion.

"Actually,' Riley said with a shrug, "I've messed up _way_ worse than that: it wasn't just an opening game like yours - I cost my old team the entire playoffs!"

"Oh, yikes!" Mary said.

"I know, right? I was a little sad at first, but..." and with that, Riley went on to explain to Mary how her friends came and cheered her on, and how - if she could make such a bad mistake and still be a welcome team member - Mary had nothing to worry about at all; _everyone_ makes mistakes, and needing help or someone to correct you was nothing to be ashamed of in Riley's opinion. In fact, she said, it made Mary better than many other "good" players that refused to improve.

It worked like a charm. Her friend brightened up and actually gave Riley a quick hug, thanking her for understanding. Sadness beamed(a rare sight if there ever was one), Friendship Island lit up brightly, and a gold-and-blue memory rolled into place. Just like clockwork.

Fear smiled warmly at the sight. _'There ya go again. Nicely done... If there's one of us who's best at their job, it's you, Sadness.'_ However, the warm feeling didn't last - his face quickly soured when he thought, _'Now, why can't_ I _do my job like that?'_

The other coworkers also couldn't help but admire how she'd handled the situation.

"Good going!" Disgust said, quickly adding, "...and I mean it this time."

Joy said, "You did wonderfully, Sadness!"

"Uh, but you helped too..." Sadness shyly pointed out.

Joy could tell Sadness was still nervous about taking credit, and wasn't about to have any of it. "Oh, me? Pfft! _Please!_ I just nudged one or two buttons at the end - _you_ brought up the playoff memory _and_ did most of the work!" her enthusiasm was emphasized as she gave Sadness a firm pat on the back.

"I'm with Joy on this: nicely handled," Anger said.

"Aww," Sadness mumbled with a slight blush, "Th-Thanks guys..."

Fear forced a toothy grin. He was trying to come up with some sort of congratulation as well, so as not to look like he felt even remotely jealous in the slightest way at all, when Mary said something very _very_ unnerving:

"So, you ready for the Geography test today?"

Riley froze.

Time froze.

The emotions froze.

 _Everything_ seemed to freeze.

Nothing in HQ moved for a few seconds.

"What?" Anger said, but the quiet returned.

You could have heard a crumb drop.

It was Fear's panicking that broke the silence with a bang, as his tea cup shattered across the floor.

"Test? What test? _We have a test today?!_ " Rushing over to the controls, he punched in an urgent command for the mind workers. "Since when did we have a test? _Did we even get a warning?!"_

"C-Calm down... Calm down," Joy said, "Where's - where's your bag? Has anyone seen his brown bag?!"

The recall tube came down, shuddered a little, and then popped out a faded purple memory from last week. "Now, remember," the teacher was saying through a foggy image. The audio was faded, the memory was dull, but the message was clear. "We'll have a test over this chapter next Friday! Be sure you take some time to study!"

Fear gulped. "Oh no..." he thought aloud.

"Yeah, no duh," Disgust said.

"Way to go, moron!" Anger spouted as he burned his paper (former headline: "SURPRISE TEST ATTACK!"), "You were supposed to _remind us_ of that! Inn't that what your fancy notebook is _for?_ "

"Aha!" Joy said triumphantly, holding up a brown paper bag, "Found it!" She scurried over to Fear. "Here ya go!"

But the purple emotion was in his own little world. "I can fix it!" he defensively shouted, "Guys, I know I made a mistake, but I-I can fix it! Hang on!" Before anyone could react, he seized a lever and pulled it back as far as it could go. Teeth clenched, eyes slammed shut, he couldn't see the warning lights that suddenly flared to life. He was too overwhelmed with panic to hear the others trying to warn him. Even as they lined up and grabbed hold, attempting to pry him off the console, his only thought was how utterly ruined their grades would be come the end of the day. _'We'll play sick!'_ he thought _, 'We'll play sick and use the weekend to binge-study and take the test Monday! But wait... what if that doesn't work? What if_ _we're_ caught?!' His fears only escalated from there, and his grip tightened further. He put up quite a stiff fight for someone so twig-like. Eventually, however, the strength of the others overpowered his scrawny arms, and he was sent flying backwards while the rest collapsed in a heap in front of the controls. Sadness happened to be the first one up, followed by Joy.

"Fear?" the small blue emotion asked, waddling over to him, "Are you oka-"

 _Boom!_ A violent burst of energy sent her flying away.

As Joy recovered for the _second_ time, she asked, "Everyone okay?"

"No!" Anger griped.

"Guys?" Disgust asked, staring at the console.

It was shuddering violently, sparking, spewing electricity and blaring a variety of warning sounds.

It erupted.

An arc of violet light shot out. Its convulsing electric tendrils smacked and stabbed through all three of the nearby emotions, seizing them in its painful grip. Freezing and stuttering and sputtering, they were helpless as the power surge reached its climax, shaking them like rattles.

Then, all lights briefly winked out. The electric fit ended. The sparse emergency lighting came back on, a warning klaxon whined faintly in the distance, and the windows all sealed shut with heavy iron curtains.

HQ was on lockdown.

Everything was still again as Fear groaned (he had landed behind the couch) and Sadness got to her feet (she had hit the couch, causing it to fall backwards and land on Fear). She took in her surroundings and said, "Oh, this is so baaad... first the core memory accident, now this..." She buried her hands into her face, on the brink of tears.

Her purple peer moaned in pain as he stood up. He wearily brushed some dust off and straightened out his tie. Right after that, he put his hands up over his mouth and his eyes widened at the ghastly sight around him. The others looked completely knocked out! HQ was in shambles, it seemed, and the scary red light wasn't helping much! He felt shame come over him. He knew - he just _knew_ \- that Sadness would be there, staring at him. Looking at his failure. _'Now you've done it,'_ he thought. He looked over to his blue friend, and was somewhat relieved to find Sadness's attention directed at the monitor instead of him.

"Uh... Riley? You okay?" Mary asked. All of five seconds had passed, but it was enough for Riley's mind to briefly lock up.

 _'A test...'_ was all she could think.

Fear whimpered, twitched, then yelled and hurried over to the control panel, reaching for some buttons.

"Wait!" Sadness said.

He turned around.

"Gently..." she motioned, whispering, "Don't make it any worse..."

Fear nervously chuckled and then looked back to the screen. Slowly, deliberately, he forced his shaking hands to _gently_ turn a knob.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," Riley replied to Mary, "It's just - man, I forgot completely. Th-thanks for the reminder."

"No problem," her friend said before walking off to her first hour classroom. Riley immediately tensed up and spun around, pretending to look in her locker for something until her burning cheeks and worried expression could go away. _'What do I do? What do I do?'_ she thought over and over again. _'Mom and Dad are gonna kill me!'_

"What do we do? What do we do?" Fear said out loud, pacing back and forth in front of the console. After the initial shock, the full weight of the situation hit him:

1\. Riley's Friday has been ruined.

2\. Fear is to blame.

3\. There's a test coming up that they _didn't study for!_

4\. Fear messed up.

5\. HQ is freaking out.

6\. Everyone but Sadness and Fear are incapacitated (for who-knows how long!), and

7\. This is all 100% Fear's fault!

He realized he was nervously chewing on his sole strand of hair. He spat it out and straightened it up again. As he did, he took another look around the room. "What in the world is going on?" he whimpered.

"We're under lockdown," Sadness's voice said from the back of the room.

"What?" Fear spun around to see the shorter emotion walking to him, carrying an open manual.

"Lockdown. Here..." She put her finger on the page and read, " _'When emotional surge protector is overwhelmed, as in the case of too much of any emotional influence, system will activate power saving mode and initiate emergency protocols until equilibrium is restored. In this event, all active emotions must focus primarily on the cause of the lockdown without neglecting secondary tasks. For further information...'"_

But Sadness's long drone was drowned out in the back of Fear's head. His thoughts ran wild. _'Oh, this is all so wrong! How was I_ supposed _to know that would happen? Well, I guess- well, Sadness knew, but that's only because she's smarter than me... or, well, she read the manuals- she- I-... Why is she so much_ better _at this than me? As the one in charge of safety,_ I _should have read those things!'_ He winced in humiliation.

"So what's the plan?" Sadness asked.

Fear blinked a few times. "What?"

"I mean, well, since- because _your_ emotional influence was the one that initiated the lockdown, it's easiest for you to remove it via secondary trigger, so what's- what's - what do you have for a plan?" She shut the manual, then added, "Do you need me to help?"

Fear's instinct was to beg for help, but he checked himself. "No," he said, "I- uh... I don't need help to untangle this - I have this all _completely_ under control. Thanks anyway."

What started as a nightmare had turned to opportunity. He could just see it - everyone waking up to find all restored to the way it needed to be, going over to thank Sadness for helping, when - gasp - _Fear_ was the one who saved the day! Everyone would thank him and congratulate him. Heck, Disgust and Anger would tell him that this makes up _completely_ for not controlling the "running away" situation. Joy would probably insist on a celebratory tea party.

And Sadness? Well, she'd tell him how happy (or, rather, how not-sad) she was to have had him there, saving Riley's grades! Pride fluttered up in his chest at the thought of impressing _Sadness!_ Sadness, the one who was best at her job! Sadness, the one he looked up to the most! Sadness, who... was still talking.

"...about what I wanted... what I wanted to talk to you about; I think you've been a little down lately, so do you think-"

"Don't worry there, Sadness," he said, as he put on a confident facade and patted her head, "I'm not sad, I'm just feeling upset for Riley! But no worries - we just need to get through the test, and _I've_ got the test covered!"

* * *

For the rest of the school day, Riley's spirits were low, flip-flopping between worry, anxiety, and sadness. Even at lunch, she couldn't think of much to talk with her friends about. It didn't help that the conversation often went to the upcoming Geography test (what kind of school discusses _that_ in their spare time? San Francisco is such a strange place). Nothing could cheer her up, and - as she walked back to her class - Riley felt utterly miserable.

On the inside, Sadness busied herself dragging the unconscious emotions over to the couch. If they couldn't wake them up, at least they could keep them off the floor and no longer at risk of being tripped over. Up at the console, Fear was pacing and muttering, sipping his seventh cup of tea. All day long, his jumpy nerves only tightened as time closed in, in spite of his best efforts to relax.

The caffeine probably wasn't helping.

But - boy - did he need it for this situation. Each time he came up with an idea, he second-guessed it and realized how useless it was. _'For crying out loud!'_ he thought, _'How the heck am I supposed to do this? The test is next class period!'_ The clock was ticking, and he still had no clue what the best course of action was. _'We can't just play sick now! It'd be too suspicious this late in the day, and- and we can't- we... Ugh!'_ He shook his head as he pictured it: everyone would wake up after this debacle only to find that Sadness had to clean up Fear's mess once more.

 _"Oh, yeah," she'd say, her eyes filled to the brim with tears, "Fear panicked and made everything worse, and we got such a bad grade that we were kicked out of school. So I let Riley cry, because she needed to - and I'm unable to do anything wrong - and that's when the lockdown ended and you guys woke up."_

 _"Fear!" Joy would say. She'd run over to comfort Sadness (who would have collapsed into a bawling fit) before rebuking Fear. "How could you? Look at how miserable you made Sadness! You should be ashamed of yourself!"_

 _"Way to go," Disgust would add, "Sadness had to come and clean up your mess. Again!"_

 _"Maybe if you'd have let us or Joy handle it, we wouldn't have failed the test!" Anger would yell, flames shooting out of his head, "Also, your bowtie is stupid."_

The thought was horrible.

"Fear?" a quiet voice asked, "Are you okay?" The question jolted him from his self-pity. He looked down to see a concerned Sadness staring back at him. "I really think you should talk about whatever's bugging you. You shouldn't bottle up your-"

He quickly cut her off. "Yeah, yes! No! No, actually." A fake smile. "I am terrific, and there is _nothing_ to worry about! I'm just- I'm so worried for Riley. Yeah! Because-"

"Riley? You okay?" asked the teacher as she walked into the room. She - too - looked concerned. "You're usually so happy!"

"Happy..." Fear squinted, repeating the word. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He looked over at the couch. "Sadness, come on! Quick, give me a hand, here."

"What?" Sadness asked, following him, "What do you mean?"

Grunting, Fear slung one of Joy's limp arms over his shoulder, "I mean help me carry Joy over to the controls! I've got an idea!"

"Uh..." Sadness said, as she helped, "I don't think we can wake up Joy - the manuals said in subsection 12F that-"

"No, no, no. That's not what I had in mind," explained Fear, "If we can't wake up Joy, we can at least have her do what she needs to do, like... _this!_ "

Swiftly, he took Joy's hand and pressed a button with it. The two looked up at the monitor in anticipation.

"Oh, yeah!" Riley said through a forced smile, "I'm just a little nervous is all, but I'm ready for the test... _then_ the weekend!"

"I bet," the teacher said with a laugh, "Well, then, alright. Just remember, I'm here for one hour after school, if you or anyone else needs help."

Riley nodded and walked to her desk, her smile flickering away immediately.

Inside, Fear sniffed, frowned, and helped Sadness carry Joy back to the couch. "Oh no, that didn't work..." Sadness said, "Riley's gonna fail the test and Mom and Dad are gonna be so upset with us..." unable to take it, Sadness breathed in and out heavily, struggling to reign in her tears.

"I'm sorry!" Fear said, arms flailing as he tried explaining, "I thought that would work because then Joy- I mean, maybe... I don't know, but-"

"Alright, class!" the teacher announced as she passed out the blank papers, "Remember, you have all period to finish this up. Make sure you take advantage of that time - don't rush, and you'll be fine."

Fear rubbed his eyes, thinking about how everything is most certainly _not_ going to be fine.

* * *

" _'What do you call the imaginary circle around the Earth whose distance from the poles is equal?'_ Did we actually go over this last week?" Fear was at the station, staring hard at the screen and - by extension - the most hated thing in Riley's life right now: that test. That blank piece of taunting paper. "I'm calling foul! We most certainly did _not_ talk about this!"

"Why don't- why don't we just skip it and come back to it later?" Sadness suggested.

Fear sighed, "Just like the others, right?"

"Uhuh."

"Okay, do it."

Sadness nudged a button, and Riley decided to move on to the next question.

Fear almost spat out his tea. "Oh, come _on!_ " he shouted.

 _'Name the vertical line that runs along the Earth's surface at zero degrees longitude.'_

"This is hopeless!" Fear said, burying his face in his hands, "They didn't even give us multiple choice answers!" He nearly broke down sobbing. What were they to do? They'd already blown a quarter of the time staring blankly at the page and not coming up with _any_ answers! If he didn't take action soon, then... He shuddered to think of the consequences.

Sadness looked over at her purple companion, with his head buried in his hands and his shoulders slouched all the way forward. Poor Fear. Poor, poor Fear. She thought about the situation for a moment, then nodded to herself. Clearing her throat, she moved to ask him - once again - what was bothering him. He was definitely upset about something, and needed to talk about it - if he got it off his chest, he'd probably be able to think more clearly and help get them out of this situation. Besides, she had a soft spot for the timid guy.

Just at that moment Fear sat straight up. "I've got it!" he declared, snapping his fingers.

"Got what?"

"Why didn't I think of that _sooner?_ It's so simple! Duh!" Punching in a command, Fear smiled at Sadness. "Observe, my blue friend!"

He raised his hand up into the air behind the console. Sadness looked back and squinted. Then she looked to Fear again, and back at where he was gesturing. Quietly, she shuffled over to him, leaned in, and whispered, "What am I supposed to be seeing?"

Fear did a double take and looked at the empty patch of air. "Oh no!" He groaned, punching in the command again. Again, nothing happened.

"Why won't the memory get recalled?!" he fretted.

"Oh," Sadness said in realization, "It's 'cause we're in lockdown. I'm sorry. There can't be any recalls right now..." She stopped again, considering her next words carefully before saying, "Besides, I think the tube is still damaged from when you-"

"Okay, okay, okay," Fear muttered, "No need to bring it up again. Just- now is not the time; we have a test to work on, darn it!"

"Okay."

And that was it. No insistence on helping, no more pushing, just a complicit, "Okay," and then silence. Exactly what you'd expect from Sadness. It made Fear feel all the more cowardly. He groaned in frustration and bent over the console, racking his already-fried brain for answers, but none came. All that came was an ever-mounting mound of aggravations and anxieties.

The test was halfway over when Sadness spoke again.

"Hey, I have an idea."

"What? Really?!" Fear jumped up eagerly, doing a happy little dance. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you! Wait." Quickly stopping and looking back at her, he asked, "What's your idea, anyway?"

"Well, since we're on lockdown, but you put in those recall orders anyway, the memories will- they'll probably come back when the lockdown's over, but that - of course - won't be until after the test, so I thought- I thought maybe the orbs are stuck just above us, and..."

"And?"

"And well, I was gonna offer to go up the pipe and pull the memories down by hand and give them to you. I mean, who knows? It might work."

"Oh my..." Fear bit his fingertips at the thought. "Doesn't that- isn't that a bit... dangerous?"

"Yeah," Sadness shrugged, "But we could tie a rope or something and I'd be fine."

Fear thought about it some more. He clearly didn't like where his thoughts were taking him, but had no choice. He was sick of Sadness (and the others - but they were currently too incapacitated to care) fixing what he broke! It was time to take action, darn it! "I- I'll do it."

"What?" Sadness said, "Oh, no that's not good! You're not as experienced as me and you haven't read the mind manuals and you could fall and get hurt or..."

She went on and on with all that could go wrong, and Fear stifled his every instinct. His entire being was telling him to take Sadness up on her offer, to have _her_ be the one to do the job (if the job should even be done _at all -_ so many warning signals were flying around his brain right now), but there was another part of him that - even if it didn't make a very articulate point - shouted much louder: he really wanted to impress her, for reasons still completely lost to him. Maybe Sadness had inspired him so much that he wanted to return the favor. Maybe it was to make up for all the years he and the others pushed her back. Or - then again - maybe he was just being a bit egotistical and defensive over the "runaway" incident, and this was a vain attempt to repair his pride.

And so it was that he later found himself thinking, 'Why _did I do this? Why did I do this? Why did I do this?'_ over and over again as he continued crawling up the memory tube. Supposedly the summoned orbs were jammed just beyond the bend. His jittery palms and trembling joints slowly, methodically pushed him up the narrow space. Its suction wasn't even active, which wasn't much of a help. Still, he kept going.

Two yanks on his rope. That was code for, "Are you okay?"

He yanked the rope twice in response ("Yeah, doing just fine"), and kept moving forward as the tube gradually began curving. _'Keep it together... keep it together,'_ he told himself, _'If Sadness and Joy survived going full speed up this thing and out to long-term, then you'll survive this quick little crawl.'_

He kept trying to build his confidence with each movement. It wasn't working. In fact, his nature was getting the better of him; he was on the brink of admitting that this was a profoundly stupid decision, when something hard hit his head. "Ow!" he hissed, then looked up to see the orb above him, touching his face.

Sadness waited on the other end of the rope, sitting gloomily on the floor. She quietly looked around HQ in its sad state. The locked down doors made her grimace, the unconscious emotions made her sniffle, and the sorry test situation completed the picture. It made her feel awful, so she did what any reasonable Sadness would do, and began crying. She cried and cried and cried until her eyes hurt, then she cried some more, letting go of the rope and curling up into a ball - a shuddering, sputtering, sprinkler of a ball. She was so preoccupied with feeling miserable that she didn't hear Fear scream or even register him tumbling out of the tube, orb in hand. However, she did notice it when he smacked onto the floor, tried to stand up, slipped in her puddle of tears, and landed right on top of her.

"H-H-Hi, Fear," she said, then stood up as Fear did. "Did you- did you find it?" she asked as she put her glasses back on. She looked at the orb, then got even more miserable-looking than before. "Oh no..." she said, hands on her cheeks, "Oh this is so bad..."

Fear couldn't help but agree as he stared at the grey, faded memory orb he held in his hands. What color did it even used to be? He couldn't tell. It didn't matter, though; something so far gone was as useless to Riley as empty air. They tried playing back the memory, but - as expected - it was only a wash of smeared colors, with uselessly quiet audio.

"Oh this is bad..." Sadness repeated, "This is so bad..." With which words, she broke down sobbing and let herself flop down on the controls, sliding down them and letting Riley feel absolutely miserable about her situation. Fear stared sullenly at the screen as the useless memory stopped playing and fell down to the floor. The test was still there, without a single answer written on it. Darn it, why couldn't he have just remembered to remind Riley to study? It's not like any of the other kids had trouble with it! He kicked the air in frustration, losing his balance again and falling to the ground.

He groaned in pain. He looked up.

He froze.

 _'Should I?'_ he thought, standing up. He glanced back at the still-sobbing Sadness. _'She won't notice. Okay, here goes nothing...'_ he tiptoed across the room, tense and rigid and worried that she'd look back to see him at any moment. Every step he took felt as loud as a bomb. He was amazed that Sadness didn't register his movement as he approached the lightbulbs. The nervous purple stick looked around and identified the one he wanted. He reached for it, but hesitated. _'No, really; should I?'_ On one hand, he (and - of course - Riley) was scared of failing the test. On the other hand...

He looked intently at the bulb, sitting there among the others. _'What would Sadness say?'_

"Fear?" she asked. He stood rigid, took the idea, and pocketed it all in one motion before turning to face Sadness as she approached, still sniffing away some tears. "Do you have an idea?"

"No," he lied.

"Oh, then- then what were you doing over there?"

"Oh, I was trying to _find_ an idea, but none of them really seem like they'd help much, you know?"

"Actually," Sadness said, "That's what I wanted to talk about. I was thinking just now about how miserably we're going to fail the test and how disappointed everyone will be in us..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Fear nervously sputtered, not wanting to dwell on that, "I am well aware of what will happen."

"Well, anyway, maybe we could ask for help?"

"Huh? What... what do you mean?"

"Well," Sadness explained as she walked over to the lightbulbs and began browsing through them, "Since we didn't study and completely forgot about it..."

Fear's heart was pounding out of his chest. _'What if she notices one missing? What if she notices_ which one _is missing?!'_ He could've sworn she hesitated as she looked at where his newly-procured idea had been, but she kept looking. _'Did she notice? Please please please tell me she didn't notice.'_

"Here," she said, taking a small round bulb out from among the others, "We could just tell the teacher and explain it. I'm sure she'd - she'd let us retake the test after we study it..."

"What?!" Fear said, horrified, "We can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's- we're- _do you have any idea how scary that is?!_ "

"No, not- not really. Is it very scary?"

"It's terrifying!" he said, quickly taking the lightbulb and putting it back. "We'd have to stand up in front of the other students! We'd have to walk down the rows of chairs while everyone was staring right at us! We definitely can _not_ do that! Not to mention the teacher. The teacher would be so upset with us that we'd be... we'd be kicked out of class!"

"Oh no!" Sadness said, shrinking away from the lightbulbs and hiding behind Fear, as if they were going to jump out and attack her. Fear guided her away from the ideas and the two went back to the control panel. "Well, then what _should_ we do?" Sadness asked, "Keeping- keeping Riley safe is your duty - you have an idea... right?"

Oh, he did. It just wasn't a very good one. In fact, it would be better off if Sadness _didn't_ find out - but how to get her out of the way long enough for the idea to work? Fear looked around, trying to come up with something, _anything_. His eyes fell on Joy, Disgust, and Anger - still knocked out. "Aha!" he exclaimed, "Sadness! I _do_ have a plan!"

"Really?" Her eyes brightened up. "What is it?"

"No time to explain!" Fear said, "Quickly, give me a hand with these guys!"

"Huh?"

* * *

Five minutes and thirty seven seconds later (Fear counted), Disgust, Anger, and Joy were lying in their respective beds, with Sadness sitting in a chair at the room's center, tapping her knees and listening intently to Fear.

"Okay," he said as he pulled up the covers over Anger (the last one to be set down), "Just keep an eye on them. That's the plan. I'm going to go get Riley through this test, and _you_ are going to keep your eye on these guys. Any questions?"

Sadness raised her hand. It took her a moment to realize she didn't need to do that, and she sheepishly lowered it once more. "Why do I have to wait in here again?"

"Oh, that's simple!" Fear explained, "We don't want them getting aches or cramps from staying on the couch all this time, right? After all, they have spent practically _all day_ knocked out - so, we just put them here, and they'll be comfortable and healthy and wake up just fine."

"Okay... but- but why do I have to keep my eye on them? Can't we just - just leave them here and they'll be fine?"

"Heh, also simple!" Fear said, forcing a smile, "If things start going wrong, we need to be able to act quickly, right?"

"...I guess..."

"So, we need someone _constantly_ keeping their eyes on these guys for signs of any trouble. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay, yes. I can- I can do it!" Sadness replied, looking as confident as Fear felt.

"That is what I like to hear, yes!" Fear said, then looked out the window that opened to HQ. "Okay, well, time's ticking! I better hurry up and get to that test! Bye!" He quickly darted out the door, slamming it shut behind him. He slid down its cold surface, collapsing in relief on the floor. Silently, he felt the bulge in his pocket. He reached in and pulled out the idea.

There it was.

He gulped. _'Is this a good plan?'_ he thought, _'I mean... is there any other way?'_ He bit his lip and nervously passed the lightbulb back and forth between his hands, the picture of indecisiveness. _'What if we get caught?'_ He looked up at the screen. Riley was checking the time. _Ten minutes were left._ It was now or never.

 _'What would Sadness think of this?'_

Well, for starters, she'd probably worry herself into another bawling fit. Then, of course, she'd probably never forgive him. Not to mention what the others would think when they woke up...

But it didn't have to be like that. He could pull this off and remove the idea when it was no longer needed, put it away, and pretend the whole thing never happened. They'd all wake up and see what a good job he did, and- and...

He looked down at the idea, then scowled in determination.

Quickly, he scurried down the ramp and over to the control panel.

Riley bit her pencil, nervously glancing around the room and thinking something over. Should she? Would she be okay? She looked at the clock and winced. She frantically looked around her again, checking her other classmates. They all looked so... _calm._ Why didn't she study? The anxious girl glanced over to her teacher, who was too busy reading a book to notice anything. With a sigh, she resolved to do what needed to be done. She looked over at the kid across from her, and began copying answers.

The lightbulb went in, after some agonizingly long hesitation, and flickered roughly to life. Clearly, Riley did _not_ like the plan, but understood that she had no choice but to cheat. If she was to get through this test, she'd have to copy these answers down. The minutes went by, and Fear nervously kept looking back at the bedroom, expecting Sadness to emerge at any moment. In that short time span, Fear went through two cups of tea and started a third. _'Come on, come on...'_ he thought, pressing several buttons and pulling a few levers, _'Hurry it up, Riley! Move, move, move!'_ Purple orb after purple orb came rolling in, clanking up against the others. Riley was afraid - afraid of failing the test, afraid of getting caught, afraid of disappointing Mom and Dad... but she kept going.

Just in time, she filled in the last blank. "Okay, kids - time's up. Please pass your papers forward, and I'll get these graded before the end of the day."

Fear relaxed, sipping his tea. Whatever the case, the test was over now. The tension was gone.

Sadness woke with a jolt.

She'd dozed off trying to focus on the others. Once she realized that, her eyes widened. "Oh no! How long have I been out?!" The blue emotion quickly jumped up and ran over to her incapacitated peers. Anger's face was still a tightly-closed scowl. Disgust was still sound asleep, some drool running down her cheek. Joy looked like she was having the most pleasant dream ever, complete with a giant grin.

Sadness sighed in relief and sat back down in the chair. _'How much time passed?'_ she wondered, nervously twiddling her fingers, _'Oh, I hope Riley's doing good...'_ She sat there only for a minute more. It was then that Joy mumbled something and giggled in her sleep. Sadness jumped up. "They'll - they - they're recovering..."

She quickly ran out of the bedroom and leaned over the railing, shouting, "Fear! They're getting better!" He looked back up at her, eyes wide with terror. She didn't notice his expression as she ran down the ramp and up to her purple coworker. "I think they'll be okay! The manual said that when they start moving like that, they've only got a few hours left before... before..." her voice dwindled to a close as she noticed a lightbulb resting in Fear's hand. "What... what did you do?"

"Oh, this?!" Fear said nervously, "It's nothing! I just- uh..." He looked up at the screen to see Riley reading a book as she waited for her test results. "I was gonna have us... uh... practice hockey! Yeah, because the test was over. That was the idea I had, but the teacher said no, so I'm just taking the idea out to put it back and would you _look_ at that book!" He quickly spun Sadness around and made her look at the giant monitor. They were currently reading (or _re_ reading, rather) some shallow love story about a high school vampire werewolf girl.

"Heh," Sadness said, on reading the paragraph where the main character found out that she had accidentally killed her cat, "That's my favorite part..."

"Yeah, real good writing," Fear muttered sarcastically. There was a moment of silence as Sadness kept reading the book along with Riley, unknowingly nudging a few of the controls. Fear hurried over to the lightbulbs and put the "cheating" one right back where it came from. "Okay," he muttered to himself, "Okay, we're good. We're good!" Smiling and dusting off his tie, he silently congratulated himself on a job well done.

Then a loud mechanical noise reached his ears. The lights suddenly returned to normal and the windows were opened once more.

"The lockdown's starting to end!" Sadness said happily. "We're still gonna be under lockdown until the others wake up, but its primary stage is over. Good job!"

"Oh, uh, th-thanks! It was no problem, heh." Fear smiled even wider.

Out of the corner of his eye, however, something caught his attention. He did a double take. One of those vibrant streams of light at the room's center was flickering on and off. He followed its straight form out to Honesty Island. The mass of land was shuddering and blinking, like a damaged circuit. Fear whimpered and looked back at Sadness. She was too enthralled in the book to notice. Good. He was _not_ going to let this ruin his moment. He ran over and pulled up the core memories, quickly identifying Honesty Island's glowing orb. It was slightly out of place. "Oh, that's all," he said. He pushed it in and smiled. "No biggie."

It slipped again, rolling off to the side just enough to send the island trembling once more. Fear winced and shoved it in place, leaning on the sphere with his elbow. The island's power was restored - for now. All he had to do was stay exactly there until...

Uh...

He hoped he looked casual enough to avoid suspicion.

Over at the control panel, Sadness sighed dreamily at the story up above. It was the part where the girl's Canadian boyfriend showed that he was actually a zombie and she told him that she loved him anyways, even if he just ate her _other_ cat. It was so romantic. However, mind drifted away from the "story" unfolding on the page, winding its way back to what was happening around her. A thought seemed to strike her. She looked over at Fear, who was standing all alone by the core memories. A frown crossed her face. She still had that feeling... something was bugging Fear, and he _needed_ to talk about it. She could read it on him; he was _very_ sad about something. She shuffled over and gave his shirt a brief tug. He flinched, then looked down at her.

"Oh, uh... hey," he said.

"Hi," she replied, nervously shuffling her feet.

"What... uh... what's up?" He asked, suddenly feeling as weak as jelly. _'She knows. She knows and she's disappointed in me!'_

The tiny blue emotion grabbed his hand and patted it (not noticing as he quickly used his other hand to hold the core in place). "Are you _really_ doing okay?" she asked, "'Cause it's nothing to be ashamed of if you're sad..."

Fear bit his lip nervously. "N-Nah, I'm doing just- just fine! Heh."

"You don't _have_ to be doing just fine, though..."

His heart trembled.

Before anything further could happen, the teacher announced that she was passing back the tests. Fear and Sadness froze in anticipation, looking up at the screen. Sadness went over to the control panel, eager to see what grade they got. Fear felt the pull, too, but resisted it. He looked down at the core memory. _'Okay,'_ he thought, _'As long as I can keep Sadness focused on the screen, she won't see that! Great!'_ With deep breath, he darted over to the control center, leaving Honesty Island blinking on and off.

The teacher passed back Riley's paper.

It was an F.

"Oh nooo..." Sadness whined, "Oh we failed! Oh no, oh no, oh nooo!" Over and over again she said that, pressing all sorts of buttons as she began to cry.

Fear was in shock. _'How?! How did we fail?! How could we have-'_

"Aww man!" exclaimed the kid across from Riley. Their grades matched perfectly; a nice, big, red "F," glaring angrily out at them.

Fear could picture all the disappointment Riley's parents would feel, and all the disappointment the other emotions would show. He'd let them down! It's all his fault! And- and... _And Riley's about to cry!_

 _"No!"_ Fear shouted, "No, Sadness! Hang on! Wait!" He made his move, and the two of them both began slamming away on buttons, knobs, and levers, working Riley up into a heart-pounding panic as blue and purple orbs rolled in one after the other. She couldn't hold it in anymore. Hot tears were gripping her eyelids, pounding and demanding to be let loose like a flood. Her ragged breathing started picking up. Fear feared the worst: _Riley would be known as the crying girl!_ First on her first day at school, _now this!_ The other kids would never let her forget it!

The final bell rang just in time, and Riley was out of the room well before her classmates.

* * *

Her soft sobs bounced off the tiled walls and floor, so quiet that the dripping sink almost overpowered them. She was the only one in the girl's restroom, hidden away in the furthest stall back, with the door shut firmly. Riley was sitting with her knees up to her chin, staring at the paper with her horrible grade and sobbing miserably. Tears ran down her reddened face. With trembling hands, she grabbed some toilet paper and dabbed her eyes, for what good that did - more tears came soon after. She just hoped nobody could hear her.

Inside, Sadness was at the controls. "Poor Riley..." she said with a sigh.

Memory after memory came shooting down from the recall tube as Riley reviewed the test. Now that the first stage of lockdown was over, the useless orbs came flowing in, magically crystal clear this time around. It added insult to injury.

Fear stuttered something in agreement, guilt smothering him. He had his arms crossed, his feet nervously tapping the floor.

"So I guess your idea didn't work in the end, did it?"

"Oh! The- my idea. Yeah. You know what, it worked just- I think- uh..."

"So what did you do anyway? Did you just guess?"

Fear scratched his chin, trying to come up with a good answer. "Uh... you see, well... I just- I scared Riley. Yeah, that's it. I scared her into remembering! But, clearly we remembered wrong, you know, because... Wait... Ahh!" He ran over to Sadness, who was retrieving one of the memories from earlier. Specifically, a memory made during the test. _Specifically, when Riley started cheating._ Sirens went off in Fear's head. "What are you doing?!"

"What do you mean?" Sadness asked as she set the orb up in front of the projector, "If we see what we did wrong, we can do better next time, right?"

Fear didn't dare yank the memory away - it would look too suspicious. At the same time, he couldn't think of anything to say as it activated. All he could sputter out was, "It's not what it looks like! It's completely wrong! You- You gotta understand the context!" He stopped right behind Sadness, heart firing like a machine gun as his trembling hands covered his mouth. The screen showed it all.

"You _cheated?"_ Sadness said.

"Look, Sadness, I-... I just thought that..." He gave up trying to explain himself. Silence descended down on them.

"Why?" she asked. She turned around to look at Fear. The sight punched him in the gut. Eyes watering, lips trembling, utter misery was on her face.

It only multiplied Fear's guilt. "Well, w-well, because- Oh, please don't cry please don't cry!"

But it was too late - gentle sobs rocked Sadness's body as her jolting voice moaned in depression. Slowly, though, she stopped long enough to notice something else. "What's this?" She moved past her purple coworker and looked out at Honesty Island, in its blinking, upset state. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Too preoccupied with Riley, she hadn't noticed that sight... until now.

"I didn't think that would happen! Honestly!" Fear protested, running over.

"Y-Y-You didn't _think!_ " Sadness shouted (or, rather, she said that in a moderately raised tone - but that may as well have been a shout, coming from her). As she spoke, her voice cracked like ice.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?!" Fear said. His mental defenses shot up right away. "It's not like I could just magically give Riley the right answers!"

"But _cheating?_ "

"It was the only idea I had, okay?!"

"No, you could've-"

"Could've what?! Listened to _you,_ right?" Fear's teeth gritted and his heart lit up, sending boiling tears to his eyes, "Well, _maybe some of us just aren't cut out to do our jobs, like you are!_ _"_ He moved passed her, not making any eye contact as he continued, " _M-maybe... maybe not all of us can be as good as you._ D-did you ever think of that? Did..." Unable to take it, Fear slumped over on the couch, slamming his head into his hands as he fought a losing battle against his tears.

Sadness was seeing him like this, and - for various reasons - that only made it worse. Sniffing and breathing in ragged bursts, the purple emotion lost track of his thoughts. They went everywhere at once; his fear of failing collapsed onto him, his own shame drowned him, the thought of how he upset Sadness stabbed him like a sword. This whole mess swallowed him up, the guilt of neglecting his duties bludgeoned him, and his inability, his utter _inability_ to do his job well ever since they got to this city... that feeling smashed into him like a car wreck... It was all piling on at once, and he felt he was going to snap like the twig he was. He was grateful for the black emptiness behind his closed eyelids.

But the solitude was only temporary.

"Hey..."

That soft voice came from beside him, on the couch.

He sniffed. "G-Go away... I don't- I don't want you to see m-..." He couldn't speak any further.

"Okay."

He could feel Sadness's weight leave the couch as she walked across HQ. There she went again, completely complacent, not putting up a fight, not pushing in the least. Doing exactly what was asked. Fear forced himself to open his stinging eyes. "Wait!" he shouted. Sadness stopped and turned around. There was more silence as her deep blue eyes gazed into his. She was looking right through him. She had to be. He could swear that she knew _exactly_ what kind of storm was tearing him apart... she was just waiting. Waiting, like a doctor waiting to operate on her patient... "S-Sadness?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

He opened his arms, snorting again and unable to talk. His trembling lips couldn't even form the word, "please." But Sadness understood. She nodded and went over to him, giving the tall purple guy a deep hug. He exploded into tears and sobs - an ugly, whimpering mess. They sat there for what felt like hours - but it wasn't more than a minute or two. Then, still sniffing, Fear let go, put his hands on his knees, and took several deep breaths, calming himself down. Sadness offered him a tissue, which he accepted gratefully. "Thanks," he said.

"Uhuh," Sadness replied, setting the tissue box down, "So, do you wanna talk about it?"

He stared up at the screen. Riley was numb with sorrow, still looking at the test. "I..." he cleared his throat.

More silence passed by.

"Sadness," he said, "I can't... I can't do my job right."

She didn't respond. There was more to it than that, and - unless Fear was willing to get it all out there - this wouldn't help him at all.

"...and," he continued, "And ever since- ever since the time when we almost... ran away... ever since then I've been sort of blaming myself, I guess. I could've- I could've stopped it. I could've scared Riley into not running away, but I didn't... I didn't even stop Anger, and I _knew_ it was a bad idea, but I'm- I was just too cowardly."

Sadness patted him on the back. "It wasn't your fault, though... You couldn't scare Riley out of doing that idea, any more than Joy could laugh her awake."

"Th-thanks..." he said.

"Go on," Sadness coaxed him, knowing fully that there was still more.

"Sadness," he said. Then he sighed, hesitating. He gulped and forced the words out. "Sadness, the thing is... I... I'm... I feel jealous of you."

The little blue emotion ever so slightly straightened up at that. "Me?" she asked, "But why?"

A rueful laugh came out, followed by, "Why? Well, look at you. You knew what to do! You made Joy realize what was wrong. You saved Riley's life - that was _my_ job, and I failed it, so _you_ cleaned up my mess..."

"Well, it was me _and_ Joy..." Sadness suggested.

"No, _you_ led, remember? You knew all about mixed memories and proper maintenance and how to do your job right. Everyone else was just taking shots in the dark... And seeing that... seeing you and Joy work together like that... along with how well you've done your job ever since... it just shows how _terrible_ I've been getting."

Sadness didn't say anything, so Fear continued.

"I've been overreacting and underreacting, but never doing things right! I've been making Riley jump at shadows, get scared of walking, heck - _I'm_ the reason we're locked down in the first place! I just... I wish I could do my job better."

Sadness contemplated what he'd just said, then nodded in understanding. "Well, why not ask for help?" she asked.

"Help?" Fear looked at her, confused, as if the thought had never struck him before.

"Well, yeah, I mean... I would've helped you, like we've been helping Joy... letting her know when she's going too far... encouraging her when she catches herself... things like that..."

Fear buried his face in his hands again, rubbing his forehead. "Oh, I wish..." he said with an exacerbated sigh, "But then I couldn't-" he caught himself, and cleared his throat. Clasping his hands together, he looked up at the screen. "I... I wanted to. I wanted to ask for help, but then..."

"Then what?"

"Well, I just wanted to impress _you_ by doing a good job."

At that, Sadness microscopically smiled. "Me?"

"Y-Yeah... I just... You do your job so well, so _perfectly_ , that - well, if I could just get you to be inspired by what I do... If I could just earn a smile... then... I have no idea," He shrugged. "I just thought it would be nice, is all. Because I look up to you... A _lot_."

Sadness didn't say anything.

"S-Sadness?" Fear asked. Before he could speak again, he felt her lean over and give him another hug. It wasn't the same type of hug she gave him to make him feel better, though. This felt different. It felt... happier, maybe? He didn't know. All he knew was that the gesture caught him completely and utterly off guard. He felt his heart slowly warm up inside his chest. A stunned grin grew across his face.

But it was a short-lived moment. His heart sunk down to his gut. The smile and feeling both vanished as he looked once more at the control panel - still glowing blue - and the monitor (still showing that "F"). Concern took place of happiness, and he found his gaze stuck to the awful sight. His arms went limp with worry. _'What can we even do about_ this _mess?_ '

"Okay," came Sadness's voice as she hopped off the couch. She extended a hand to him, as if she were encouraging a young child. "Do you want me to help? We can still fix this."

Fear gulped, feeling... well, _fear_... come back to wash over him again. Nonetheless, he took those anxieties and shoved them down deep - no time for them now. He took a deep breath, let it out, and then nodded. "Alright," he said. Hand-in-hand, they arrived at the console. Fear straightened his bow tie, cracked his knuckles and looked down at Sadness. "So, what's the plan?" he asked with half-confidence.

* * *

Riley couldn't believe what she was doing as she sat down in front of the teacher's desk, her parents sitting on either side of her. "Well, Riley," said the teacher, "What did you want to talk about?" Riley gulped and took a deep breath.

Inside her head, Fear and Sadness were at the console, delicately managing operations. When they resolved to text Mom, he was antsy, while she was insistent. When the parents arrived, he felt tense while she felt relieved. When they walked up to class, his heart was erupting while hers was steady. And now, Fear, on the right-hand side, was closely paying attention to Sadness's instructions, tension tightening itself around and suffocating him. "Okay," she was saying, "You need to ease it down to 20%."

"What?!" Fear said.

"Fear..."

He gulped nervously, took a deep breath, let it out, and stared at his hand, currently seizing a lever tightly. He breathed in. He breathed out.

He looked back to the screen.

"Riley?" Mom asked.

"Oh..." Fear groaned. _'They're gonna judge us! They'll be so upset with us!'_

"Fear."

He turned over and looked at Sadness.

"I can't do my part unless you ease up on that lever. Come on, now... Remember, Riley _needs_ this."

"Right, right. Okay..." He trembled again, his hand still stuck a death-grip on that lever. _'You can do this,'_ he thought, _'You've gotta. Please, just... just ease it up... just believe in yourself, man!'_ But - focus as he might - his hand stayed still, overruling the rest of him. He was too scared to move. "I... I can't!" He said, "I can't, I just can't!"

"Okay..." Sadness replied. She leaned over and firmly covered his hand, "On three."

Fear breathed in.

"One..."

He breathed out.

"Two..."

He grit his teeth and closed his eyes.

"Three."

Gently, Sadness guided his hand and helped him pull the lever down to a lower position.

All was silence and blackness to Fear. He didn't want to look. He did _not_ want to.

"There. You can open your eyes now."

Fear did. The meter read 20% - exactly where it needed to be. No more, no less. He trembled, but managed to keep it held in place. He gave a timid thumbs-up to his peer. Sadness moved over to the other half of the console and depressed a button. The surface lit up a vibrant blue-and-purple. A trill of excitement hit Fear as he saw it. _'So... this is it. This is what it feels like to work with another emotion.'_

"Well," Riley said, "I just got done with the test today, and..." she sighed and mumbled, "I failed it."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, honey..." her mom said.

Riley felt a tear coming on, but managed to suck it in.

"Hey, it's okay," her father added, "been there, done that. It's not the end of the world, monkey."

"Okay," Fear said. His heart felt like it was blowing up, "What now?"

"We discussed it. You know what you need to do."

Fear nervously grinned. He looked back at the shelves filled with memories. He forced his lead feet to take him over there. He began browsing the shelves, fidgeting and rubbing his palms together. Eventually, he found the memory of them cheating. He picked it up and held it at an arm's distance, as if it were a poisonous snake.

Then, he became like a statue, unmoving and unresponsive. All the worst situations in the world came back to his mind. He gritted his teeth, fighting his urges as best as he could, taking step after heavy step over to the projector. When he finally arrived, he stood there, hesitating, genuinely _not_ wanting to do this.

"Well, Riley," her teacher was saying, "I _have_ noticed your grades steadily dropping in this subject; it's good that we're having this discussion, as it gives us the chance to take care of this before it gets worse."

Fear winced.

"Fear, do you need me to-"

"No, I... I've definitely got this..." he interrupted. A heartbeat passed. Two. Three. He hissed, winced, and let the memory come to life as he backed quickly away.

He ducked under the console, cowering as though a bomb were about to explode. In fact, he was so focused on hiding - and Sadness was so focused on Riley - that neither of them noticed movement behind them.

Riley nervously bit her lip, then said, "That's not all, though... I didn't think I'd do good on the test, and since I didn't study, I copied off someone else... I'm-... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

Stunned silence hit the room. Her teacher was the first to respond. "Well, Riley, you definitely are right - you shouldn't have done that."

Riley closed her eyes.

"However... I think, given your past record and since you were so honest about it - we can let it slide just this once. We all make bad decisions, after all. Besides, if _anyone_ wants to retake a test, they are more than welcome to do so."

Riley looked up, her eyes widening with unexpected relief. Slowly, a smile crept across her face.

Inside her head, an unexpected sight could be seen. Joy was standing there, grinning ear to ear and looking up at the screen as she pressed a button. Behind her, Anger and Disgust were making their way down, each suffering from a nasty headache, but none the worse for the wear otherwise. "So what'd we miss?" Anger asked.

"I... don't know," Joy admitted, "Sorry. I just felt like I needed to press that button, so I did! Good job, though, Sadness - it looks like you kept things running during our little... uh... absence, heh."

"Oh," Sadness said, shyly backing away, "Actually, it wasn't just me - Fear did a lot, too. You should - you should thank him for all he did to get us through the test and get a second chance at it."

"Come on, you're just being modest again!"

"No, really. I-I'm not making that up."

"Oh!" Joy said, her voice betraying her surprise, but she was soon back to her normal, springy self. "Well, where is the purple guy, anyway?" Sadness motioned under the console, where Fear was still hiding. "Ah, there you are!" Joy said. She bent down and put her face right next to his (she still had no concept of personal space), "Hi, Fear!"

"Waah!" he shouted, jumping up and smacking his head on the console. Rubbing it furiously, he stood back up. "Ugh... Oww!" He opened his eyes, face-to-face with Joy's bubbly self. "Ah!" he jumped back a little. "Joy!" for a moment, he was paralyzed, shocked. Then, his mind caught up with the rest of him and he processed the situation. "You're- you're back!" He laughed in utter relief. "You're- Oh, _finally!_ "

"Yeah! So is everyone else. And I - personally - just wanted to say thank you!"

"For- uh... for- for what?" he chuckled anxiously _'Oh, I messed up again, didn't I? Mom and Dad are mad at us! This is a disaster!'_

"Well, for keeping things running smoothly while we were out! It turned out great, I think, but - I mean - I still don't actually know what's going on, but I do know that Riley feels pretty happy about it, and that things have come out better now, so, good job!"

Fear grinned stupidly. "What..." He looked up at the screen, where Riley and the teacher were discussing a day to do a retake. Slack-jawed, he couldn't believe his eyes. A chuckle - a genuine, happy chuckle - escaped him. He spun around and looked at Honesty Island. Unblinking, unflinching, it was as if nothing had ever happened to it. He smiled, then giggled again, then started full-out laughing, dancing around the console, paying no regard to the confused faces of his coworkers. He was just too happy to care!

He locked in on Sadness, and - before she could react - picked her up and spun her around in a clumsy dance of celebration. "We did it! We did it, we did it, we did it!" he chanted over and over, each sentence punctuated by a laugh or two. He had to slow down and catch his breath eventually. As he did, he stopped just long enough to look at Sadness in her confused, smiling face. Perhaps he was _too_ overjoyed; he immediately planted a big fat kiss right on her forehead before hugging her tightly once more. "Thank you so much!" he said.

"Uh... you're welcome," Sadness said, her squished face actually changing to a slightly crimson hue, "But... but I can't breathe..."

"Oh! Sorry." He quickly set her back down with a toothy grin, then turned back to the console.

The others were all staring at him.

It hit him all at once.

He went pale, and groaned worriedly. He tried to clear his throat, head spinning and mind working to come up with something to say. Instead, his legs trembled, and his stomach turned to a churning mass. In one fluid motion, Fear whimpered and fainted in embarrassment.

The others would have commented (or - rather - Joy would have mentioned something about how adorable that was, Disgust would have scoffed and rolled her eyes, Sadness would have looked down with some minor concern, and Anger would have indifferently flipped a newspaper page), but a new development got their attention.

"However, young lady," Riley's dad said, "Pizza is officially called off tonight because of what you did."

" _What?!"_ Anger yelled.

* * *

 **This was partially inspired by a piece of fanart that I found on DeviantART entitled "Its okay you're not as popular" by "Trollan-gurl22." Go check it out; it's adorable.**

* * *

 **Optional Author's Note (feel free to ignore this obscenely large wall of text) - I'll address the elephant in the room right away: is this a shipfic?**

 **Well, for starters, anyone who knows me knows that I despise shipping. I loathe it. Almost as much as I loathe most OC's, all Self-Inserts, and every instance of out-of-character writing. This is because shipping is usually used to fulfill some wish on the author's part, and _not_ as a tool to further tell a story. I find that as preposterous as romance in most Hollywood films I've seen; it's forced, clichéd, and just plain _bland._**

 **However, I wanted to prove that shipping in and of itself could be used to tell a good story, as a _tool_ for storytelling, provided that - A. It's used to contribute to the plot, and not the other way around, B. The characters _stay in character_ (this is the big reason why I can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a single shipfic ever - the characters are transformed from people we love to generic teenage-like drama queens trying to go out on dates and stuff), and C. _T_ _here's a point to the stinking thing!_ That should be the cardinal rule of storytelling, in my opinion: don't put something in the story just because "it would be cool/adorable/sweet/hilarious." Try to make sure that everything you put in serves a purpose, and that purpose is: to tell a good, coherent tale.**

 **So, to answer the question: is this a shipfic** **? My answer is (drumroll, please)...**

 **"Yes." Yes, it is. But it's _not_ what you'd expect from one, I'll give you that.**

 **You see, I intentionally set out to defy the clichés of shipping and keep romance from rearing its mushy head and getting in the way of the plot. In my endeavor, perhaps I've played Fear and Sadness's affections for eachother too subtly. I don't know - I'll let you be the judge of that.**

 **Also, I will go on record and say that this is _not_ intended to be romantic. I maintain that there's a huge difference between _love_ and _romance_. For instance: I _love_ my family - I love them enough to kiss and hug them without hesitation - but I don't feel romantically attracted to any of them. Essentially, Fear and Sadness share a special connection like that, here. Nothing romantic (that's just creepy when it comes to Inside Out, in my opinion).**

 **Anyways, enough of all that. Bottom line: this is the type of shipfic I'd read and actually enjoy (and yet there are still things about it that make me cringe, heh).**

 **Speaking of which, I hope you enjoyed this, but if you didn't, more power to you - rip me open with a nasty review.**


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